There are known polishing heads sold under the mark BS6 by the French Company THIBAUT. These polishing heads, useful on machines with bridges and polishing line, comprise six carrying segments for flat grindstones usually called "bricks" by those engaged in this field. The six bearing segments are given an oscillating movement such as to cause the grindstones or bricks to operate along a generatrix when the polishing head is driven in rotation during smoothing or polishing. These known polishing heads comprise a coupling means to a machine for driving in rotation with a vertical or a horizontal axis and a means for securing the crown of the polishing head, so as to cause a drive cam to turn at a speed different from the speed of the polishing head and to create the mentioned oscillation of the flat grindstones or bricks.
These known devices are generally satisfactory, but have the drawback that the oscillation is caused by a complex mechanism that is costly to make: this mechanism of the alternating type in the BS6 heads can also as a modification be a planetary mechanism comprising satellites driven about a principal crown at a speed different from the speed of rotation of the head.
On the one hand, such mechanisms are costly to make, to install and to adjust with precision; on the other hand, the large diameter required by the presence of such mechanisms results in the production of heavy and cumbersome heads, permitting only the polishing of large surfaces.